Debunking the need to do something BIG...

And figuring out how to Be Still in what’s to come...

I am a different person today than I was 2 years ago. My aspirations have shifted. I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps it’s having achieved and surpassed 50 years old. Or recognizing, by observing my children become miniature adults, just how incredibly fast time goes by. Perhaps it’s the challenging professional season I just came through or derives from all the reading I’ve done over the past several years. I’ve been a sponge for all things “self help”. It’s not that I needed help, necessarily, but clearly I was searching for...something.

I read books by Ekhart Tolle, Brene Brown, Shauna Niequest, Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins to name a few. I didn’t just read them...I devoured them. You’ll find flags and highlighting and underlining (gasp...ME writing in a book...that’s not normal).

I wish to be more present in my life. Spend more time contemplating. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? What’s it all about? I want to spend time basking in relationships with those I love, contemplating and then executing kind deeds for my children, husband, family and friends. Eat healthily, exercise, bake cookies, leisure in the shower AND exfoliate AND shave my legs AND lotion, meditate, journal, read, watch movies and sit...doing...nothing sometimes (gasp again...those that know me will think I’ve definitely gone off the deep end).

And, yet, I still have this nagging little gremlin inside me that thinks I need to do great BIG things. My new friend Natalie Dumond calls those voices “the itty bitty shitty committee”. Well that committee bashes me for being “lazy”, for not using all the amazing gifts I have (financial acumen, pristine ability to organize operations in effective and efficient ways, ability to develop great teams, visionary strategic planning and create crazy levels of momentum). Yet, even writing this I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. I’m listening to it because I believe it is God speaking to me “You’ve been there, done that and now is no longer the time for that. I have other plans for you”.

Recently I said to my amazing life coach, Lorin Beller, that I am struggling with starting a new business and being contented with it remaining small. I don’t know how to do small. I know how to work 80 hours a week and eat, sleep, breathe a business. And that achievement addict part of me thinks the new business needs to make as much as, if not more, of an impact than the last one. I need to work with BIG people who have BIG dreams to make a BIG difference. And make LOTS of money doing it.

I even said to Lorin that I wanted to do something big enough that if Oprah Winfrey heard about me she would want to have lunch with me. Lorin said, “You want to be famous”? I said, Oh no...definitely not. I like my privacy. I just want to have lunch with her. Lorin said, if Oprah Winfrey heard about you, OF COURSE she would want to have lunch with you. You are cut out of the same cloth. You care about similar things because you are on a path to enlightenment.

And now, I’m working to recover from the gremlin inside me who says that I need to do this BIG. NO. My BIG job right now is to help bring these kids to be responsible adults. And the money? Believe me...I LOVE money. I love earning it and counting it, saving it and using it and especially donating it. Over the past year I have recovered from having the mental connection between money (the amount I can earn or generate) and my self-worth. I know...when I write it, it sounds ridiculous. Yes, I have financial goals. But the real reason for those goals is to ensure the whole weight of our life, financially, doesn’t rest on my husband. This is my “LITTLE” work mission statement:

I am an optimistic and passionate supporter of all people who seek

transformational growth in pursuit of small or great humanitarian

efforts.

Instead of striving and pushing and MAKING things happen, I’m going to Be Still and allow God to make this what it is supposed to be. I’m going to set very firm boundaries on when I will work, what I can and cannot do, and stick to them. I’m going to still dream and aspire and create...but without the pressure of having to do something BIG. And, as it always has, the money will come. When you do what you love, in alignment with your values and your life’s purpose, the money follows.

I am supposed to help people. No parameters, no rules. Just do what I can do to help improve my little tiny part of the world. No dream to meet, heck what am I talking about, IMPRESS Oprah?!?!?! I choose to be contented with my life, exactly as it is right this minute. Because this is perfection...even in any and all of its imperfection.